Title

Author

Date of Submission

Spring 2015

Academic Programs and Concentrations

Human Rights; Human Rights

Project Advisor 1

Helen Epstein

Project Advisor 2

Peter Rosenblum

Abstract/Artist's Statement

The overwhelming power of NGOs, which has grown enormously since the 1980s, implies that they too have the responsibility to respect rights based principles in all of their affairs. As the development of a national health system is a requirement of the right to the highest attainable standard of health, medical relief projects are violating the right to health by not bolstering the capacity of the Haitian Ministry of Health to realize it, projecting instead subjective standards of medical viability, rather than measures predetermined by Haitian public health workers. The greatest problem with this medical relief projects is that they endeavor to provide their own solutions to the problem of poor health in Haiti, rather than referencing the national plan for health, or enhancing preexisting structures. Because they often do not work in tandem, with the Haitian government, Ministry of Health and Population, and other NGOs, these medical relief projects are often duplicated.